The Benefits of Brown

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This post serves to archive the recent exhibition in Victoria Building’s PR1 Gallery: The Benefits of Brown. Conceived, curated and created by Graphic Design tutor Andy Bainbridge, the collection of items came together to champion this previously uncelebrated shade. Below is a minutiae of the magnitude of items collected over several years, brought together with charm, storytelling and no little historical context. Thank you, Andy.

 

Why have an exhibition dedicated solely to brown, you may well ask? Well our answer would be why not? From our digging it would appear no one has ever attempted one before, so if nothing else that is reason enough in our (brown bound) book.

So with that question out of the way, we can get on with the content.

Brown is a colour that pervades all our daily lives, whether we are conscious of it or not and the collection of items presented here were all collected, ostensibly by one person over the past 2 years. In the main most items were collected within their daily sphere but some were sought out and a few were kindly donated.

We have tried to compile, order and curate some of the collection but some items are simply placed and presented at random for your perusal..

We encourage, no insist, upon your physical engagement with the exhibition. So with that in mind please feel free to examine and handle the items, inspect them and feel free to flick through the print.

The one thing we do insist upon is that you place them back how you found them and resist the temptation to purloin them, as that would really leave us browned off!

Thank you and enjoy!

– Andy Bainbridge

 

With thanks to the exhibition sponsor Preston Board & Packaging.

D&AD – New Blood Winners

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We’re happy to share our annual D&AD New Blood Awards update:

This year, we have two more pencils to be proud of. Mohamed Makkan (aka Jibby!) brough home the much coveted yellow for his response to the Christopher Ward brief. And Chris Dempsey took away a wood pencil for his work on the Morris & Co. brief; both awards were picked up at this year’s D&AD New Blood ceremony in London.

The New Blood Festival provided a great opportunity for students and staff to reconnect with our friends in London. It was pleasing to hear industry feedback on all students’ work, with a particular nod to sharp ideas which cut through the noise of a visually noisy environment.

We were also chuffed to receive three ‘ones to watch’ prizes, awarded to Sannah Ali, Connie Dickinson and Emma Yeomans.

For staff, all work on display was true to Preston thinking and craft, work we are proud to show; and the above prizes just ice the cake. See all the class of 2025 here.

Soak up the work below, look at other entries; and enjoy a few snaps from the Festival.

ThE TIME MAKERS
BRIEF: CHRISTOPHER WARD
– by MOHAMED MAKKAN


yellow Pencil Winner

bringing the outside in
brief: morris & Co.
– by christopher dempsey

wood Pencil Winner

Awards night!

The Festival

The ClASS OF 2025, some old friends below:

D&AD – New Blood Winners

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Great news from this year’s D&AD New Blood Festival.

Congratulations to University of Central Lancashire graduates, Zakiyya Mulla and Amir Patel. From the Preston class of 2024, Zakiyya was awarded a graphite pencil, while Amir earned a wood pencil at this year’s D&AD New Blood ceremony in London.

Both designers impressed the judges with their incredible work on the IMAX brief, have a look at the projects below.

Reframe with IMAX
– by zakiyya mulla


Graphite Pencil Winner

IMAX CHEVRONS
– by amir patel

WOOD Pencil Winner

Resource Klaxon: SearchSystem

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Here we feature SearchSystem, the latest addition to our Archives list. It does exactly what it says on the tin and is another fantastic resource available to anyone, for free. It is Julian Van Havere’s curated collection and can be easily searched using the index by selecting tags such as ‘graphics’, ‘guidelines’, etc.

It was brought to our attention via our subscription to David Airey’s Identity Designed newsletter, another useful tip for the design magpie.

Enjoy.

D&AD – New Blood Winners

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Big, big congratulations to Olivia Kelly and Phil White who both won a wooden pencil at this year’s D&AD New Blood Awards!

 
 

Olivia and Phil

Olivia answered the OMO, Unilever Persil copywriting brief.

The problem set was to encourage a new generation to dream and dare, because you don’t achieve your dreams by playing it safe.

Olivia took the insight ‘6 out of 10 British adults are afraid of taking risks. With Persil wanting to bring their ‘Dirt is Good’ message to a new audience of young people who don’t have families, it is time for Persil to encourage their new audience to dream, even if it's only for a minute’ and flipped the proposition on its head and asked the audience to dare to dream instead.

This new angle led to the copy based solutions below.

Phil answered the Heineken brief. The problem set was to reposition Heineken as the catalyst for making a fresh connection. Phil’s response was inspired by the notion of Dutch Courage:

Fear has no cultural or geographical restraints. There are so many different phobias but the affects they have on us are the same emotionally and physically. Fear can inhibit us from achieving goals or strive to make a positive change.

Heineken Dutch Courage is a festival based event, where people are challenged to reinvent themselves and come face their fears head on. The goal is for people to meet, support, share and bond over their fears through a fresh and rewarding experience.

filter*

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A branding and packaging project created by Sophie Robinson, in response to a brief written by LOVE to create a new sun care range targeted at Gen Z.

CONFERENCE WEEK 12

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Here we feature nearly all of our Conference Week 12 speakers talks. To watch each talk simply click on the highlighted names below.

Nick Asbury & Greg Quinton talk smile in the mind

Nick Asbury talks about writing

Greg Quinton talks about the day job

Monika Fosberg talks about her working practice

Tom Farrell talks ideas

Andrew Griffin talks Illustration & Animation

Martin O’Neill talks all things collage

Dani Molneux talks all things Dotto

Maisy Sumer talks about her practice

Owen Hughes talk strategy

Andrew Ross talks about ideas in Graphics

Jo Moore talks about ideas in advertising

Jamie Supple talks about his process

Craig Oldham talks all things film

Jim Sutherland talks about the importance of play

Modern Illustration

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Unsure how we originally came across this website, but Modern Illustration is an excellent archive we’ve been spending some time on.

Its content is specifically of print circa 1950-1975, and is the work of Zara Picken.

It is vast, brilliantly curated, and well worth a chunk of your time.

Modern Illustration

D&AD – New Blood Winner

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Massive congratulations to Hasan Lokhat for his wooden pencil win at this year’s D&AD New Blood Awards.

Hasan answered the Top Trumps brief, and in his words:

Top Trumps are trying to tap into the 18-25 audience, to achieve this, I am pitching an idea that involves Top Trumps partnering with Spotify.

Spotify Wrapped is released in December every year. People share it on social media and brag about what they listen to. We are going to turn this into a Top Trumps competition. By using Spotify Wrapped’s data, each user will receive their own personal Top Trumps Card.

Spotify’s AI engine will pitch users against others daily.

Build your collection of TopTrump TopSpot cards and aim to win as many as you can. At the end of the game the player who holds the coveted TopSpot will win an exclusive, one of a kind deck of TopTrumps cards, consisting of the top most streamed artists on Spotify, personally signed by each Artist or Band.

PRESENTATION

RESEARCH

Packaging

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The graphic design first years have finished their second semester packaging project.

A new take on the brief itself involved taking a closer look at the world of cereal packaging, and creatively design a box of cereal on behalf of a given client, event or audience.

The student could choose the most appropriate cereal (cold or hot) for their client. The solution could be achieved through three-dimensional design, surface graphics or a combination of both.

airbnb – Copos [translated from ‘flake’ in spanish’]

Queen’s platinum jubilee

Warburtons

sunday times

Warburton’s

airbnb

pet rodent owners

pride

winter olympic games

The sunday times

glastonbury festival